The Influence of Poverty on Opportunity Gaps in K-12 Education: A Scan of the Research

Partnered with Middle Cities Education Association to explore how poverty factors into school funding and student performance.

Michigan students are not reaching proficiency, and there are inequities evident in performance among them across the state. These facts led to a deeper exploration of how to address the resulting opportunity gap. Looking at an extensive range of resources, PPA explored how the opportunity gap is measured, the ways in which progress is being made for disadvantaged students, and how funding is associated with student achievement in high-poverty districts. Key lessons from this scan were that funding and poverty does matter in the educational setting, data systems and reports need further development to allow transparency and tracking of progress, and all states need to do more to address the opportunity gap.